Graphics and Sound

Look ma, it's not boxy anymore!

Another criticism of TA was that the units were, well, too robotic and polygonal. Sure, they were designed to be robots, but robots lack personality. In contrast, the TA:K units are all organic and incredibly detailed; you'll struggle to notice even a single polygon in these amazing models! Some of the units are quite breathtaking to see in action; I guarantee the first time you see a trebuchet fire you'll be impressed, and the dragons are astonishingly fluid in flight. Some of the more basic grunt units aren't as exciting, but on the whole TA:K contains the best looking and best animated units in any RTS game to date by a wide margin. It's even fun to watch them die-- in a slight tip of the hat to several other games, the units will gib, leave red blood on the ground, and corpses will slowly decay on the battlefield.

That's not G-rated!

Bugs kick ass

The TA engine has also been updated with 16-bit color support. Although the maps in TA are pre-rendered, they are 3D nonetheless, and much better looking with the smoother gradients that 16-bit color affords. Another benefit of 16-bit color support is the addition of GLIDE and Direct3D support. Unfortunately, 3D accleleration is something of a mixed bag in TA:K because the game is a worst case scenario for today's 3D cards: dozens of tiny 3D characters on a pre-rendered 3D background. This will stress the efficiency of your driver more than anything else, so those fancy TNT2 and Voodoo3 cards may not be that much faster than software! Owners of Voodoo cards rejoice, as GLIDE will definitely have less overhead than Direct3D in this scenario.

Anyone got any raid?

Victory!

For those of you w/o 3D

TA:K looks and performs well in software mode, in most cases looking identical to 3D hardware output. However, there are a few effects that are available only in accelerated mode, such as the shifting fog of war and true alpha-blending for fire, lightning, and other spell effects. I wouldn't expect a tremendous speed increase or dramatically better visuals when running in hardware. For most Direct3D cards, the drivers may still be too buggy for the unusual needs of TA:K. You'll definitely want the latest reference drivers.

The heart of Thresh?

A temple

Ear candy

The sound in TA:K is good, though more typical than the approach used for TA. Units have several "acknowledged" sound effects that they will occasionally use when being given orders. Instead of the grinding of gears and clash of metal in TA, you get braveheart type combat effects and recognizable phrases from most units-- if that unit is capable of forming words. Instead of the sweeping, unique "Apocalypse Now" classical music that was spooled from the CD in TA, you get the industry standard set of medieval chants and melodies that seems to go with every game of this type.